For President’s Scholar Muhammad Dhafer, policymaking will be based on data and trust

SINGAPORE — For Muhammad Dhafer Muhammad Faishal, being awarded the President’s Scholarship was not just an honour, but a responsibility that he knows he should not take lightly.

The 19-year-old, who is among the four President’s Scholars this year, said that the scholarship represents an opportunity for him to go to university to learn how to better serve his community in his future role as a public servant.

Speaking to TODAY on Sunday (Aug 18), he said: “I would really like to be involved in public consultation for the crafting of policies, engaging with the ground to understand what the needs of the community are."

Mr Dhafer, the son of Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, is only the third Malay to receive a President's Scholarship.

The first was Mr Ismail Ibrahim, who received the award in 1968. He is the eldest brother of former Cabinet minister Yaacob Ibrahim.

The second Malay recipient arrived 44 years later, in 2012 — Mr Adil Hakeem Mohamad Rafee, a Raffles Institution student who went on to study liberal arts at Yale University.

Like Mr Adil Hakeem, Mr Dhafer will also be pursuing liberal arts, but at Stanford University.

While the degree will expose him to disciplines within both the humanities and sciences, he is chiefly interested in learning about data analytics as he believes that knowledge in this field can help him to identify trends that can help improve governance in Singapore.

Mr Dhafer was cited by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday (Aug 18) as an example of how each successive generation of Malays in Singapore has been better educated.

In his Malay speech at the National Day Rally, Mr Lee noted that the Malay community here has progressed because of its emphasis on education. 

He noted that the number of Mendaki Award recipients who have achieved a first class honours has grown, from seven to 70 in the last 10 years, while many from the younger generations of the Malay community hold important positions in the community. 

He added that more Malay parents are choosing to enrol their children into preschools as they “understand the importance of providing their children with a good foundation before primary school”, and at secondary and post-secondary levels, Malay students are receiving better results. 

Today, seven in 10 National Institute of Technical Education Certificate graduates upgrade over the course of their careers and more students are making it to polytechnics and universities, with a greater number graduating with diplomas and degrees, Mr Lee added.

A regular volunteer at Pertapis Children’s Home, Mr Dhafer said that the personal one-to-one interactions he has had with the kids there have helped him to understand how government policies can affect people on the ground.

The experience also taught him that he needed to build trust with the kids so that he could better relate to them and understand their needs.

“These kinds of personal experiences during community engagement is good because it helps me to better understand the people on the ground rather than just focus on the macro perspective. That is something I really value and hope to further explore,” he said.